Ben Domenech: Biden's mixed COVID messaging is 'damaging'

Published April 29, 2021

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report," April 27, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Starting today, if you are fully vaccinated and you are outdoors, you need -- and not in a big crowd - - you no longer need to wear a mask. I want to be absolutely clear, if you are in a crowd like a stadium or at a conference, or a concert, you still need to wear a mask, even if you are outside.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You chose to wear a mask as you walked out here. What message were you sending by wearing a mask outside alone?

BIDEN: Watching me take it off and not put it back on until I get inside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRET BAIER, HOST: President Biden outside the White House walking up, fully vaccinated President Biden, with the mask, telling everyone that now the CDC recommends you can, if you are vaccinated, take off your mask outside.

Let's start there, let's bring in our panel, Ben Domenech, publisher of "The Federalist," Harold Ford Jr., former Tennessee Congressman, CEO of Empowerment and Inclusion Capital, and Trey Gowdy, former Congressman from South Carolina. Trey, we have been back and forth on this issue, CDC guidelines have been slow on some things, a lot of things. What about today and the messaging?

TREY GOWDY, FORMER SOUTH CAROLINA REPRESENTATIVE: Bret, I just love it when people say to be clear and then they give you the most garbled, confusing message they possibly can. I'm still at a loss as to whether or not fully vaccinated people can transmit the disease. If they can, then why are you giving us this guidance today? And if they can't, then what took you so long?

I think most Americans, Bret, want to do the right thing, but when you have this unholy marriage between politics and science, they have given up on trying to figure it out. So I have to wear -- I don't have to wear a mask in large crowds. Do you have to wear one when the Nationals play, but I don't when the Reds play because we lost seven games in a row and nobody goes to the games? I don't even know what the guidance means, and he just gave it to us.

BAIER: The CDC director did say that there is very little, almost no chance that if you are fully vaccinated that you give the virus to someone else, made a big deal out of it, and then there was kind of a garbled walk- back the next day. There has been some mixed messaging here from the CDC. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Any place I have control as president, everyone will be mandated to wear a mask.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, BIDEN CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER: Masks are not theater. Masks are protective, and --

SEN. RAND PAUL, (R-KY): If you have immunity, they are theater. If you already have immunity, you are wearing a mask to give comfort to others, you are not wearing a mask because of any science.

FAUCI: I totally disagree with you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why was President Biden the only world leader at the climate summit Zoom who was wearing a mask?

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He is sending a message to the world that he is putting in place precautions and continuing to do that as leader of the United States.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: There are many situations where fully vaccinated people do not need to wear a mask, particularly if they are outdoors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: That's the recommendation now. Senator Paul, you saw him in there, Harold, said if you want more people to get vaccinated, and the government does, that President Biden should go out and burn his mask and say I'm fully vaccinated, and I don't need to wear it anymore.

HAROLD FORD JR., FORMER TENNESSEE REPRESENTATIVE: I'm not sure he should do that. The American people, we have a history of the national tragedy of coming together when tragedy or challenge, national tragedy or challenge confronts us, from Pearl Harbor to hurricanes, weather to the Challenger explosion obviously to 9/11. This pandemic hit at a time in which the country was deeply, deeply divided. And it seems like every statement, every change in policy, every statement about a statement around this virus, even when it's around something as benign as wearing a mask, which I don't quite understand how intrusive that is in light of what we are faced with, just deepens the division.

I think on an objective standard, by any objective standard, you have to say that Joe Biden has managed his first 75 to 100 days around COVID well, whether it was the vaccine distribution, whether it was COVID relief, whether you voted for him or not.

The second phase of this, I would agree, it gets a little tricky at times. But I have to think that we would all be pleased with some of the progress that we've made. And if things are a little clumsy at times, the CDC takes a second or two to get it right or a statement or two to get it right, conspiracy theorists shouldn't rule the day with misinformation and mischaracterization.

We are better and stronger for where we are today. They may have been a little clumsy, but I've got to tell you, I'm looking forward to taking my mask off, and I'm looking forward to being able to do that when more people are vaccinated. That's the message I hear from the president.

BAIER: OK, speaking of vaccinations, Ben, you have Congressman Jimmy Panetta, Leon Panetta's son, from California, a letter to the president. There are other lawmakers who are signing on to this. "We write to respectfully request you issue a waiver of informed consent to ensure members of the Armed Forces receive COVID-19 vaccine at the earliest opportunity. Vaccinating every eligible service member will improve readiness and have an immediate and positive impact on the communities in which they serve. DOD has made admirable efforts to educate service members on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, yet these measures have been outpaced by disinformation dominating social media. The most effective tool the department may utilize to ensure widespread vaccination is a mandate." For the military. Thoughts?

BEN DOMENECH, PUBLISHER, "THE FEDERALIST": Congressman Panetta is lying. The simple fact is that we have seen very few people actually pass away within the services from COVID. In fact, it's almost entirely concentrated on that ship that I think people are very well aware of.

I'm going to do something which I don't normally do, which is disagree with Harold. I think that we can use the first 100 days of this administration, look at it and see within it an enormous amount of antiscientific activity which I think is unfortunate and which I think is going to ultimately lead to a degradation of faith in our institutions.

We have seen Dr. Anthony Fauci from the moment that he came out last year and said that we needed to shut down schools, he should have been fired, OK. He was doing something that was anti-science. He was doing something that was not justified by the fact that we knew at the time and that was not justified in any of the western world, and ultimately lead to American children falling dramatically behind, particularly minority children. As you know a vast majority of people who still do not have full in person learning are minority children in America. The amount of damage that is being done to them and to their future prospects is immeasurable.

And I think that when we look at this administration, the way that they've treated this whole thing, it has amounted to a huge amount of fear as opposed to actual science. When the president comes out with a mask over and over and over again, he sends the message implicitly that if you get vaccinated, nothing will change. And this is something that I think has been enormously damaging to the prospects of Americans getting vaccinated. It has sent a message that even if you do this, nothing will change.

I went out today in the bluest district in Virginia, and I saw a vast majority of people not wearing masks running around. And to me, that is an indication of how hypocritical this administration has been when it comes to sending messages to the other side and blaming the idea on anti-masking on Trump voters and the like.

BAIER: But that education is really important, Trey. I saw a guy mowing the lawn by himself on a hill with a mask on. I'm hoping it was because of the pollen. But maybe it wasn't. And Trey, that is something that varies where you are in the country to how people absorb that information.

GOWDY: Yes, Bret, Harold Ford is one of my favorite people in the world. I really, really like him. But I'm going to point out, he used a word twice. He used the word "clumsy." Most of us don't want science to be clumsy. That's what we are asking. Politics can be clumsy, the law can be clumsy, but medicine and science should not be. And that's what we are asking is tell us based on the science what we can and cannot do. And I think that there is a belief that politics has creeped into the medicine and the science, and that's what we reject.

BAIER: All right, you get a quick rebuttal there, Harold, since you were mentioned twice.

FORD: "Clumsy" means nothing other than they were trying to get the statements right. What is hard for me to comprehend is how is wearing a mask such an infringement in the middle of a pandemic? I just differ. I think that we can all say we're happy where we are now, and we are going to be happier when we get to a better place in the next several months.

BAIER: Up next, education and equity, we'll talk about that, what's happening in Virginia after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HANNAH CORBETT, VIRGINIA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: I think that taking away the opportunity for kids in the future is just going to land them in bad spot when they are looking to move on after high school.

JAMES LANE, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: I've seen articles that say Virginia is doing x, y, or z. Virginia is not doing anything right now in this space because we are literally just having conversations with the community about what they want in the next set of revisions. There is really nothing moving forward at this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: There's a lot of backlash. The Virginia Education Department appears to be backpedaling now. What they had was an initial rollout for equity in their high school math curriculum. There was a bunch of pushback from parents, and now they are saying they are just considering a bunch of different things when it comes to equity, but it's still on their website. We are back with the panel. What about the story, Ben? And obviously parents got really upset about it.

DOMENECH: Look, this is coming from an area where I actually grew up, and I'm enormously concerned about it. When you look at this trend toward the idea that getting the right answer or expecting the right answer for minority students is in some way an indication of white supremacy, as if two plus two equals four is some kind of racist statement, it's absolutely absurd, and it will ultimately be to the degradation of American education if we allow this idea to take hold.

So I think this is an early lesson in terms of the approach that the educational institutions of America are going to use in this regard, and people should be prepared to see it go into their communities as well and be prepared to fight back and pushback against it.

BAIER: Harold?

FORD: I agree with Ben. In the name of equity, we should stop this. The economic growth sectors of the future, artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing, all require competency in math, namely calculus and geometry. If we are serious about equity for black kids, white kids, all kids, then we have to focus on this. I am a product, a living example of parents who believed that I should be challenged in school, I should be expected to excel in school. My kids are going to face the same set of expectations for excellence in my household. I understand this might be well-intended, but stop. This is not helping kids and not enabling a future, an American future that can be strong and vibrant.

BAIER: And to their credit, the state superintendent, Trey, said they are now working on things and insisting nothing is final, we are workshopping ideas, even though the initial rollout did happen on the website.

GOWDY: Yes. Bret. I am in the minority. I think if we are going to ban waterboarding, we should ban all forms of torture, and that includes calculus and trigonometry.

(LAUGHTER)

GOWDY: Look, I wrote a chapter of a book that three times zero is three, so I am not the best person to be on your show. Here is a simple thought. Let kids take the highest level of math they can possibly take, and then for those of us who grew up wanting to be television commentators, let us take no math at all, which is what I did in college, and I turned out mediocre. So give the parents and the students the choice. It's that simple.

BAIER: They told me there'd be no math, that's right. Ben, but your concern --

FORD: Trey Gowdy is for choice. Gowdy is for choice.

BAIER: Yes, Gowdy is for choice.

Ben, your concern about a broader level on this equity pitch that we have heard from the administration and across agencies, but now states taking that ball and running with it in different ways. This may just be one of them.

DOMENECH: Yes, I think that this whole equity pitch on the part of the administration is a really dangerous thing because it is leading them down the road into essentially demanding less of students. And to Harold's point, look, we want more minority Americans to be able to access STEM learning, to be able to go and work for NASA. I want to see more of that. And somehow now that's a racist demand? It just seems absolutely absurd to me. We should reject it as Americans. We should understand that it's nonsensical, and we should agree that two plus two equals four is in no way a racist statement, though it may demand a little much of Trey Gowdy.

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: It's no offense to Trey Gowdy.

OK, when we come back, tomorrow's headlines tonight with the panel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAIER: Finally tonight, a look at tomorrow's headlines with the panel. Harold?

FORD: President Biden continues to make progress in America's fight against COVID. His announcement that fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear a mask is a major step forward. And by equity, Ben, I mean white and black kids. We are getting beat my our adversaries, all of us are, so with that.

BAIER: All right, Trey, your headline?

GOWDY: After census numbers come out, California and New York announce plans to build big beautiful walls and make Texas pay for it.

(LAUGHTER)

BAIER: We will see on that. All right, Ben?

DOMENECH: Beef, it's what's for dinner. Epicurious, a terrible recipe site you should check out, milk street, or binging with Babish or food witches instead, has announced that they are no longer going to have recipes with beef in them in order to battle climate change. I think that's absurd. Beef is wonderful. People should eat as much of it as they want. And I'm going to go inside right after this and make a steak.

BAIER: Good for you. All right, guys, over/under, one hour for the speech. Harold?

FORD: Over.

BAIER: Trey?

GOWDY: Under if there is a god.

BAIER: Ben?

(LAUGHTER)

DOMENECH: Over.

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